2nd PC ballot results

My prediction:

Tim Hudak 4226-40.8%
Frank Klees 3294-31.8%
Christine Elliott 2829-27.3%

The actual results:
Hudak 4128 -39.9%
Klees 3299-31.8%
Elliott 2903-28.0%

So I was pretty accurate, it looks like the 70-20-10 prediction for Hillier's vote might have been closer to 75-25-basically ziltch. The projected 9% gap between Hudak and Klees is 8.1%, but Klees would still need a very very big swing towards him from Elliot. A 60-40 split for Klees would still at this point end in a Hudak victory.

Tim Hudak - 5289 - 51.2%
Frank Klees- 5041 - 48.8%

So while Klees did marginally better than I thought he would on the second ballot, pretty much anything under 65% of Elliott's vote would give Hudak the victory.

This is what 65% of Elliott's vote to Klees would look like:
Frank Klees- 5168- 50.2%
Tim Hudak- 5144- 49.8%

As to what I actually think will happen, I'll go out on a limb and say Klees gets 55% of Elliott's vote.

Tim Hudak - 5434 - 52.6%
Frank Klees - 4896 - 47.4%

So I predict Tim Hudak will be the next Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario leader.

I forgot to add a map of the 2nd ballot winners, so here we go. Only minor changes. All 3 of Hillier's wins go to Hudak, Klees breaks the tie in Davenport, Elliot takes Etobickoe Centre from Klees, Hudak picks up Windsor West and Northumberland-Quinte West from Elliott, Lambton -Kent - Middlesex from Klees.

PC predictions, looks like Hudak has it

Elliott is done like dishwater. She had to finish ahead of Klees to have a hope of leap-frogging Hudak, and now the only way she could prevent being bumped off the next ballot would be to get the bulk of Randy Hillier's second place votes, which given that they are at opposite ends of the PC spectrum, and Hillier's vocal endorsement of Hudak, is simply not going to happen.

Let's say that Hillier's support breaks down into something like 70-20-10 for Hudak/Klees/Elliott, that leaves a second ballot looking something like this:

Tim Hudak 4226-40.8%
Frank Klees 3294-31.8%
Christine Elliott 2829-27.3%

This now puts Elliott's near 3000 votes in play. Perez Hudak is reporting that Elliott sources are saying that their own supporters lean Hudak, which would give Hudak the victory no question. However, given the mutual antipathy between the Elliott and Hudak campaigns, particularly over the the last couple of weeks, I can see this being spin. Let's assume the whole Klees/Elliott axis (interesting how it ended up Klees/Elliott, and not the predicted Elliott/Klees) is somewhat existent, and lets split her vote 60-40 to Klees.


Tim Hudak- 5360 -51.7%
Frank Klees- 4990-48.2%

As we can see, a very close race, and Elliott's support will be crucial. If Klees wants to win, he will need the Elliott vote split to be more like 70-30, which would give us this:

Frank Klees- 5274-50.9%
Tim Hudak- 5075-49%

Klees getting 70% of the Elliott vote might be wishful thinking, and as the number show, he would still barely squeak out a victory. What this means is that the people calling Randy Hillier the "kingmaker" would seem to be correct if these predictions come true, as Hillier's support going overwhelmingly to Hudak would give Hudak the space he needs to survive all but a tsunami of Elliott support going to Klees.

Oh, and just for the sake of having my prediction in if what Perez Hudak is reporting is correct, here are the last ballot results if Elliott support breaks in the direction of Hudak to the tune of say, 55-45.

Tim Hudak-5782 -55.8%
Frank Klees-4567 - 44.2%

Let's see how things work out.

Tory first ballot results in

Hudak: 3511 Klees: 3093 Elliott: 2728 Hillier: 1013

Riding by riding winners here: http://www.unitedandstrong.ca/2009/06/27/first-ballot-results/

Suprisingly strong showing by Klees. Hillier only wins 3 ridings, and has endorsed Hudak. Looks like the prediction of the Hudak/Hillier axis vs. the Klees/Elliott axis is coming true.

A couple thoughts on Christine Elliott

Christina Blizzard basically endorses Elliott here: http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/christina_blizzard/2009/06/21/9877096-sun.html

And the Toronto Star gives a run down on how each candidate, including Elliott, would push the party to the right: http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/653871

Blizzard says of Elliott, who has tried to run in the Red Tory mold;

"From where I'm sitting, anyone who has the audacity to quietly speak about compassion in the middle of a Tory leadership campaign is getting a message across loud and clear."

Elliott's championing of herself as a "compassionate conservative" and a Red Tory is largely a result of Elliott trying to outflank the other three competitors, who are various shades of deep blue, by going after the centrist grassroots voters, and to a degree, an echo chamber effect, in which Elliott says she is moderate and compassionate, so the media reports it as is.

The Star article is interesting because it points out that despite Elliott's admittedly Red Tory rhetoric, her actual proposed policies are far outside centrism. This includes the Harrisite policies of a minimum wage freeze and a 60-hour work week, and most importantly, a flat tax, which for all the meowing over human rights in the PC leadership race, is by far the most politically toxic proposal to emerge (and tellingly, is the most visible economic policy in a race whose policy issues have largely been defined by the radical Randy Hillier).

In my experience in talking to my PC supporting friends, Elliott is not particularly popular because of her Red Tory rhetoric. Blizzard says that Liberals would fear Elliott the most, and perhaps in the long-run, she would pose the most threat, but looking in the medium-term to 2011, I believe Elliott would be rather good for the Ontario Liberals, because of the difficulty I believe she would have in getting the party election ready and behind her leadership. Quite simply, the same right-wing flank that so often made John Tory's hold on the party difficult, or influenced him into taking more right-wing positions than he was comfortable taking, would continue to cause trouble under Elliott.

Many Common Sense Revolutionaries of the Hudak camp or the rural malcontents of the Hillier camp would chaff at the prospect of being led into an election by another moderate GTA'er, and despite Elliott laying down her so called Path to Victory, I think Elliott will find it difficult to enact her plan when significant chunks of the party see her as either John Tory/Dalton McGuinty (and many Ontario PC's say they had difficulty telling them apart) in a skirt, including the nearly 200,000 PC voters who either stayed home last election or cast a protest vote for the Green Party.

Of course, as voting starts today this could all be for nothing and one of her more right wing competitors will win.

Hudak Bingo!

Full version: http://i39.tinypic.com/2exohg6.png

Brought to you by the great people of either the Elliot or Klees campaigns (I think it might have been the Klees campaign though), this was being handed out outside the Ottawa leadership debate tonight. I was unable to actually watch the debate myself, so can any intrepid PC readers tell me if it actually hit bingo, and if so, if people actually cried out "Hudak Bingo!"?

The Crash of Tim Hudak?

New PC leadership poll out shows some stunning numbers: http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/story.html?id=1656671

The NP shows it as being Elliot 35%, Hudak 24%, Hillier 22%, and Klees 20%, with 43% undecided.

If these numbers are true, this would seem to blow the established dynamic out of the water, with Elliot leaping past Hudak, and Hillier being massive underestimated along with Klees being overestimated.

Perez Hudak has a different take: http://www.perezhudak.com/index.php?e=125

Perez Hudak heard the actual Ipsos-Reid release shows a lot of undecided voters (43%), and a lot who wouldn't indicate a second-ballot choice (23%).

As well, the horse race numbers being reported are an averaging of first and second ballot preferences for each candidate. 35% of PC supporters would select Christine Elliott in their top-two choices, 19% as their first choice and 28% as their second.Twenty-four per cent would choose Tim Hudak on their top two ballots, 13% on the first and 18% on the second. Randy Hillier is given 22% per cent average support, getting 14% on the first ballot and 14% second ballot support. And finally 20% of Tory supporters would choose Frank Klees as one of their top-two choices, with 11% first choice support and 17% second choice support.

This would demonstrate a closer race, and with the dynamics of 43% of voters undecided, a lot is still up in the air. We can maybe draw something from the spin of the Hudak's campaign statement:

This latest poll confirms that our Party still has lots of work ahead to get ready for the next provincial election. It states that our Party trails the Liberals by 13 percent. 43% of people who identify themselves as Progressive Conservative voters were unsure of who they would even vote for in this leadership race. Clearly, this demonstrates the work that needs to be done by our Party in terms of our Opposition presence and recognition.

(That they comment on this second shows that to a degree at least, they recognize the validity of the poll, rather than dismissing it out-right)

With respect to this latest poll, it is important to note that the poll did not survey actual members of our Party; it only surveyed people who indicated that they would vote for our Party if a provincial election were held today. Most of the research was taken before the May 14th membership cut-off. And Ipsos-Reid admits in its press release that because they did not have access to the Party membership lists, the poll is not intended to be predictive of the actual voting PC membership.

(With a poll based off likely PC voters as opposed to members, we could maybe draw some conclusions. Perhaps they hit a Toronto heavy sample of more moderate PC voters as opposed to pro-Hudak rural/suburban Common Sense Revolutionaries. Perhaps amongst the general population (even a PC-likely population) Elliot has higher name recognition than Hudak due to both her aggressive media campaign and the fact her husband is Jim Flaherty.)

The rest of the statement are the standard shows of strength of the campaign, they have the most endorsements, claim to have signed up the most members, have the best ground game, etc.

Regardless of how accurate this poll turns out to be, for now, at least, it feeds the narrative that Hudak has lost his edge and Elliot is on the offensive.

Ontario PC's empty rhetoric on the HST

My entry for the YLC Positive Politics challenge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MevlKbbGzdM&feature=channel_page
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With the debates in the PC leadership race starting, the policies of each contender are starting to come out, as is the hollowness of the PC's rallying against the Harmonized Sales Tax. http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/638577

The simple fact is the PC's are being hypocritical in attacking the HST. The federal Conservatives supported the measure, and the provincial PC's as well as each of the leadership contenders, supported a HST right up until budget day. I think the pure emptiness and hypocrisy of the PC leadership contenders stance on the issue can be highlighted with some quotes:

While Klees and his three rivals vying for ousted leader John Tory's job said they would fight the tax, none vowed last night at the party's first leadership debate to scrap it...what might happen to the tax if Progressive Conservatives are elected in the 2011 provincial election is "pure speculation" now, said candidate Christine Elliott, MPP for Whitby-Ajax...Klees said it would be "futile" to figure out his proposed PST cut.

The Ontario PC's have no economic plan for this province, and would rather divide Ontario with controversial ideas on Human Rights Tribunals and legalized discrimination than deal with the real issues at hand.

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Also check out my spoof of the Tory attack ads: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNZ0aIeBczI&feature=related

The fall of Tim Hudak?

My entry for the YLC Positive Politics Challenge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MevlKbbGzdM
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New developments in the PC leadership race:

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/636650
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090520.wonttory20art2212/BNStory/politics/home
http://www.intelligencer.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1571026
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2009/05/15/9464831-sun.html
http://www.stephentaylor.ca/2009/05/ontario-pc-membership-numbers/

The Cliff Notes version, for those too lazy to read all those:

-Hudak, despite having the most establishment support, as well as presumably the most support amongst pre-existing members, has not signed up nearly as many new members as people have expected.
-Christine Elliott has outfundraised Hudak 10-1, and has been successful in signing up new members.
-Frank Klees has signed up many new members (perhaps the most of any candidate) and looks like he will perform far better than many expected. Apparently has been making good in-roads in ethnic communities, a group which Hudak needed to go after, particularly considering his endorsement by Jason Kenney.
-Randy Hillier has a very hard-core group of support, and thus has not done terribly in fundraising, but his membership sales lag far behind, really only making progress in rural Eastern Ontario, which is his home-base anyway.
-The messages coming out of the Elliott and Klees campaigns are that Hudak has lost his front runner status, and the membership and fundraising numbers would seem to suggest Hudak has less of a lock on the race than previously indicated.
-Klees' performance in signing up new members has been the surprise of the campaign, and given rumours that he would back Elliott over Hudak, could be a game-changer when it comes time to cast ballots.
-Strong regionalization in membership sales: Hudak is strongest in Southeastern Ontario, Elliott and Klees in the GTA, and the Hillier in Eastern Ontario.
-Hudak's percieved lack of policy is starting to hurt him.

Also, check out my new Youtube attack ad spoof video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNZ0aIeBczI&feature=channel

Do any Tories actually know where Mississauga South is?

First this: http://theliberalscarf.blogspot.com/2008/08/hugh-arrison-doesnt-know-his-riding.html

And now the above from Christine Elliot's campaign, highlighting a Mississauga South fundraiser...in Oakville?